Machete edges: toothy or polished?

oldmanwilly said:
Yup, mea culpa. I'm 100% aware that my technique is a large part of the issue. Another issue is that I have to cut a lot of cedar tree sapplings (juniperus ashei) which must be cut off at the ground level. If any green leaves or branches are left behind they will grow back and be 2x harder to kill. I've resigned myself to using a pair of loppers when I can help it but sometimes all I have is a machete or a kukri and have to bite the pebbles to get the job done.
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Seriously, don't underestimate the usefulness of a good sturdy grub hoe! A great investment for that kind of work. Make it a narrow one with some good heft to it and keep it as thin and sharp as your soil will permit.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Well I guess TwinStick arguably did say that it was outright wrong, so my mistake there. That being said, can you describe to me any circumstance in which you have purposefully swung a machete at a rock you knew was there, and that you knew you would hit if you swung at it that way? Because the only time I ever had was when I made a video deliberately inducing damage to a machete edge for the sake of ironing the damage out on camera. I cannot think of any other circumstance personally where I would need to hit a rock. Any time I've had to make cuts against obstructions I've found alternative ways of swinging to avoid hitting said rock. There are lots of ways of using a machete to cut targets that are amongst rocks that are not convenient to move that don't involve banging your edge into stones. Consider it an invitation to get creative with your approaches.

It's very fair that you may have lacked the experience at the time to find these things self-evident, and you had work to get done, and that's fine. But while one should be prepared to deal with damage from rocks, hidden old fence posts/wire, and so on, one should also not deliberately employ techniques that are prone to inducing that damage if other effective methods also present themselves. I'm not an armchair warrior here or anything--I use machetes extensively for real work in real conditions, but I am also prudent about my swings.

A customer of mine once made the mistake of not checking his swing path with a Tramontina bolo I'd sharpened up for him and caught it on a hanging vine he hadn't noticed. It made the blade glance in a way he didn't anticipate and he nearly chopped through his one shin bone. If his buddies hasn't been right there with him he could have died, and he almost had to have the leg amputated. Because of one careless swing. Always check where you're swinging.

Most of Imacasa's stuff has distal tapers, and my Kingfisher machetes (made by them, of course) are tapered as well. Chillington Crocodile/Martindale of England also does distal taper. But you're likely thinking of antique Collins machetes as far as old ones go.
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No, I've never intentionally chopped a rock. Nor have I promoted such behavior. But when you are literally making hundreds, if not thousands of ground-level cuts a day, and cutting around rocks and boulders above ground, as I stated in my first post, it's not uncommon to hit rocks. Contrary to your presumptions, this was not the result of poor technique, or failure to recognize the "self-evident ", it was simply a combination of the law of averages , the requirements of the job, the conditions of the terrain, and the falibility of being human.

If there's one thing you learn when your job depends on clearing a large amount of brush day in and day out, it's which technique works best under the specific circumstances your facing. And yet, I still don't claim to be an expert.

But hey, if you could have cleared the very same areas that I cleared, in the time I did it, without hitting any rocks, I would have been thoroughly impressed. But I guess we'll never know.

And as for injuries, despite the number of times I swung my macheteI each day, each week, and each month, I never cut myself, nor anyone else. Heck, maybe I actually knew what I was doing.

But I can see this starting to go in circles. You say I wasn't using the proper technique, while I know that my technique worked just fine, because I was the one there doing the work.

If agreeing to disagree on the matter isn't good enough for you, then I don't know what else there is to say.
 
The things I was describing as self-evident were the methods of cutting that prevent impact with avoidable obstructions. You described it as one of your first jobs. There are numerous methods for avoiding striking them, that are learned through experience that would have been lacking when first starting off, and that's a circumstance in which frequent impacts with rocks would certainly be expected.

You seem destined to deliberately take everything I say in the worst possible light rather than looking at specifically what I am saying and what I am not saying, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that it's both a frustration and a disappointment.

I don't claim to be an expert either, but I do have almost two decades of frequent machete use and ardent study under my belt, and use them in a rock-rich environment. I'd certainly be interested in seeing any example landscapes you're able to pull up on Google Images of the kinds of settings you were working with or descriptions of how you were cutting and when the encounters occurred because I've yet to come across a circumstance in my neck of the woods where such impacts were truly inevitable or required as opposed to being preventable accidents.

You mentioned that it wasn't uncommon to hit rocks. That's perfectly understandable as an on-the-clock worker in a rock-rich environment with limited available tools to do the job. What I said was that I don't understand the constant hitting of rocks, which many individuals at large commonly claim to be a thing that "just happens" to machetes. It comes up in almost any online discussion of the tool and how its edge should be kept, despite the fact that, while it does happen accidentally in the course of their use, is nearly always preventable, and my initial remarks were in no way directed at you.
 
killgar said:
No, I've never intentionally chopped a rock. Nor have I promoted such behavior. But when you are literally making hundreds, if not thousands of ground-level cuts a day, and cutting around rocks and boulders above ground, as I stated in my first post, it's not uncommon to hit rocks. Contrary to your presumptions, this was not the result of poor technique, or failure to recognize the "self-evident ", it was simply a combination of the law of averages , the requirements of the job, the conditions of the terrain, and the falibility of being human.

If there's one thing you learn when your job depends on clearing a large amount of brush day in and day out, it's which technique works best under the specific circumstances your facing. And yet, I still don't claim to be an expert.

But hey, if you could have cleared the very same areas that I cleared, in the time I did it, without hitting any rocks, I would have been thoroughly impressed. But I guess we'll never know.

And as for injuries, despite the number of times I swung my macheteI each day, each week, and each month, I never cut myself, nor anyone else. Heck, maybe I actually knew what I was doing.

But I can see this starting to go in circles. You say I wasn't using the proper technique, while I know that my technique worked just fine, because I was the one there doing the work.

If agreeing to disagree on the matter isn't good enough for you, then I don't know what else there is to say.
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I agree with everything you say .After I ground-level cut one inch thick bush tree /we cut on angle / I need to damage leftover on root because if I step on it .............
Most time small round river rocks are under ground , you simple can not know that they are there .Of course that I am careful where and how I cut, but it just happens.....
Hey , machete is tool which we use to done some job . I absolutely don't care if I will damage my machete , even with bad damage on edge it is still useful and it will done job . I am there for fishing not for sharpening .When I come back home ,several pass on grinder will make it as new for next trip !
I like toothy edge , seems that better catch/cut free hanging thin branches and grass
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
I've personally never understood the "constantly hitting rocks" thing. I've only accidentally hit rocks with my machetes...twice? in the roughly two decades I've been using them because I check the path of my swing before flailing away.
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Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of avoidance. Last week we cut 3 tons of sugar cane by hand at ground level for syrup. We had to work in a bad location this time. We were in some rocky soil and everyone’s blade got beat up pretty bad. I honestly couldn’t believe how bad my Woodmans Pal took it. I expected dings and deformations but it was blowing out some decent sized chips. I’ll edit in pics in a couple days.
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Well, apparently it wasn’t as bad as I thought and definitely deflection and rolling with only one chip.
 
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FortyTwoBlades said:
I've personally never understood the "constantly hitting rocks" thing. I've only accidentally hit rocks with my machetes...twice?
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My needs are best fulfilled by machetes, but I have rocks everywhere that I can't avoid in most tasks.
I use dirt cheap south American machetes from Imicasa and gavilan because of this.
I have those that I keep very sharp for less rough work, and those I keep with a much less sharp more durable edge for the rough work.

It depends on the use and your working environment, but rocks can be an unavoidable thing for some people even when a machete is the most appropriate tool for the job.
 
An exaggerated visual demo with a 24" Hansa yegua model of what I mean by how to tilt the blade to avoid impacts with small stones and hillocks. The amount of tilt you put on the blade can be modulated to cut higher or lower, with the spine acting as a stop to prevent the edge from diving into anything unwanted.

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Mr.Wizard said:
That's not going to help in a lava bed. ;)

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Sure it will. I can swing like this on a cobblestone beach and cut wild rosebushes without banging my edge. The spine hits the stone, not the edge, and you adjust the ride of the blade according to the elevation of the undulations/obstructions on the ground in the path of the swing. If you need something to stop your blade from over-traveling through a cut you can take a branch or sapling cut and hold it behind your target as a backstop like a cutting board, though usually you can just swing several times with less force to nibble your way through without having excessive followthrough. With clump grasses like that instead of swinging you can saw with the blade at the base of the clump instead. Also, machetes are thin enough that in a lot of circumstances where you have to cut roots or the like you can actually use the unedged back of the blade. You'd probably want something more around 14" in that environment, though. A typical bolo would do fairly well I expect. Making your cuts downhill also helps with making sure there's nothing on the opposite side of your target to ram into. There's all manner of context-specific techniques that can help depending on what you're dealing with.
 
Walking through a narrow slot of irregular rock, clearing things from shin height and above, the issue isn't rocks at ground level but the walls of the slot. I don't see how the blade angle technique applies here, and I think you understand as you mention other methods like using a backstop.

I wouldn't touch the bear grass as it is low and soft and easy to walk though and servers an important role in soil building and anchoring. It's the baby pines that would have one climbing in and out of the slot excessively or frequently getting smacked in the face, and most get choked out anyway.
 
You didn't specify what you were removing or where so my comments were general, as a result. Some of the targets and areas in that image would definitely be applicable for the angled low cut method. If making a cut down in a crevice surrounded by stone I'd be more likely to bring a pair of appropriately sized bypass loppers or a saw but if a machete was all I had I'd probably opt for batoning through thicker saplings instead of swinging at them, or tilting the blade up and making cuts using the base to "tap-tap-tap" through, and using the tension-cut method on smaller stuff. You can still use the angling method against angled or vertical surfaces, though, for some cuts.
 
killgar said:
I used a machete daily for work in one of my first jobs (clearing brush from hillsides around peoples houses for fire safety, lots of manzanita). The only thing I ever used to sharpen my blade was a file, coarse on one side, medium on the other. Aside from chopping through thick brush all day, it wasn't uncommon for me to hit a rock when chopping low, or rocks hidden in the thick brush or covered by decades of leaves and other natural debris.

I had to resharpen regularly, sometimes multiple times a day. Any kind of refined edge would be a waste of time in my opinion.
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100% second this. I used my machete extensively when I did maintenance, not limited to cutting vegetation.
‘Medium file is all I used on it. I don’t know the brand and maker of the machete, lost the label 1995, o have it since 1990.
‘it’s in my trunk right now, probably rusted a little bit but when I put new edge on it it’ll be fine.

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Mr.Wizard said:
FortyTwoBlades FortyTwoBlades What is the tention-cut method?
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The first method shown here, just done with the machete instead of a knife. Basically putting tension on the trunk by bending it and cutting the backside of the bend that's under tension. The fibers spring apart with very little force, which allows you to use a very light and controlled blow, or even just laying the blade on and using it like a big knife to push-cut through, like this fellow does with his Mora.

 
Yes. Shouldn’t do it but the machete was the only thing I had with me at the moment and the sign was supposed to be taken down this day. I did chop 3 sides of it and broke the back site of the post.
I May have video of it…
Here it is:
 
Pretty dangerous "stump" left behind there--hope you mashed it down with a rock or somethin'! Was it not able to be pulled from the ground for some reason?
 
Yes, it had concrete underneath, didn’t want to kill myself pulling it out, with or without post. The sign was not supposed to be there next day. Next day I brought back a winch, hooked it up to my hitch and pulled everything. I probably was able to do it with the aluminum post still attached to the concrete but seems like a good opportunity to use the machete at the moment. Done it before, actually took the video for another forum to prove that it could be done…
 
I’ll try to dig the machete out of the trunk, if I take good picture, would you guys be able to identify it ?
Its unbelievable thing, I don’t think something can kill it. It had couple of paper labels by the handle but of course they are gone…
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Sure it will. I can swing like this on a cobblestone beach and cut wild rosebushes without banging my edge. The spine hits the stone, not the edge, and you adjust the ride of the blade according to the elevation of the undulations/obstructions on the ground in the path of the swing. If you need something to stop your blade from over-traveling through a cut you can take a branch or sapling cut and hold it behind your target as a backstop like a cutting board, though usually you can just swing several times with less force to nibble your way through without having excessive followthrough. With clump grasses like that instead of swinging you can saw with the blade at the base of the clump instead. Also, machetes are thin enough that in a lot of circumstances where you have to cut roots or the like you can actually use the unedged back of the blade. You'd probably want something more around 14" in that environment, though. A typical bolo would do fairly well I expect. Making your cuts downhill also helps with making sure there's nothing on the opposite side of your target to ram into. There's all manner of context-specific techniques that can help depending on what you're dealing with.
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Are you kidding us ? You can come up with thousands of ways how to do it without damaging edge , so can I. Backstop ???? Did I look to you like employed gardener ? I think we are not on the same page , in the wild I do what I have to do in the fastest possible way. If I damage the machete doing that , the world will not fall on my head !
 
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